Astronomy General Space Discussion

[ferball]

Most amazing aurora in Tassie tonight.

 

[CD Xbow]

Starship V launch tonight at around 11 pm EST. Will it go bang! Can Starship splash down successfully? Can the chopsticks catch the booster?

 

[Bender571]

Caught the booster!

 

[CD Xbow]

Caught the booster!

Yes. Amazing feat.
Starship hit the target and gave us a kaboom.
Next flight must be to do a return landing for Starship.

 

[CD Xbow]

Scientists have discovered a second large impact crater dated to 66 mya, the same age as the Chicxulub crater which is impact that is thought to have caused the Dino's to perish. This one is off the coast of Africa and the impacting body was a little smaller than at Chicxulub. The crater has been imaged using 3D seismic data. It's possible they were originally one object that fell apart as it neared Earth.

The Dino-Killing Asteroid May Have Actually Been a One-Two Punch

New 3D mapping adds crucial information to our understanding of this ancient event.

www.popularmechanics.com

This one is for the scholars and looks at the strength of the data suggesting asteroid impacts cause mass extinctions. I can only give a summary because it's mostly behind a paywall though they give you enough to get an idea.

'In summary, of the 18 extinctions, one confirmed impact-induced mass extinction and 3-5 possible impact-enhanced biotic crises can now be considered in terms of any extraterrestrial forcing. This tentative conclusion is only superficially consistent with the simplistic assertion in the recent literature of four ‘mass extinctions’ associated with the four largest impacts, as much substantial evidence is still needed. In fact, well-documented volcanic cataclysms are currently shaping the mainstream neo-catastrophic geology.'

The impact catastrophism and Alvarez theory of mass extinctions in a retrospective, perspective and prospective: towards the Phanerozoic impact event stratigraphy

Despite several, sometimes prominent propagators, meteorite impact research had a long period of peripheral status until the 1980s. Since then there h…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[CD Xbow]

It's all happening! Busier than trade week, at least. NASA Europa clipper mission launched successfully on a Falcon Heavy this morning.

NASA begins mission to explore prospect of life on Jupiter’s moon

Follow the latest news headlines from Australia's most trusted source. Read in-depth expert analysis and watch live coverage on ABC News.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Rotayjay]

I only found out on Friday so was a bit late to the party. Tonight might be one of the last nights to see Comet C/2023 A3. Here in Adelaide I could not see it with the naked eye, but I managed to capture it with 20+ second exposures on camera at Brighton Beach.

You need an unobstructed western horizon with minimal cloud, about 15 to 90 minutes after sunset. I read that you can still see it without a camera but with binoculars. This site really helped me:

Where is Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)? How to Find Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the Sky

All most complete and up to date resources needed to find Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the sky

theskylive.com

 

[MP_]

I only found out on Friday so was a bit late to the party. Tonight might be one of the last nights to see Comet C/2023 A3. Here in Adelaide I could not see it with the naked eye, but I managed to capture it with 20+ second exposures on camera at Brighton Beach.

You need an unobstructed western horizon with minimal cloud, about 15 to 90 minutes after sunset. I read that you can still see it without a camera but with binoculars. This site really helped me:

Where is Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)? How to Find Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the Sky

All most complete and up to date resources needed to find Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in the sky

theskylive.com

My pic from when it was visible in the morning

 

[Rotayjay]

My pic from when it was visible in the morning

View attachment 2148995

What was the date? Could you see it with the naked eye?

 

[MP_]

What was the date? Could you see it with the naked eye?

6th of October at around 4:30am and only visible with my camera on a 20 sec timer. not sure its magnitude ever got enough to see with naked eye. It’s now moving away from us so is probably unlikely to get brighter.

 

[CD Xbow]

6th of October at around 4:30am and only visible with my camera on a 20 sec timer. not sure its magnitude ever got enough to see with naked eye. It’s now moving away from us so is probably unlikely to get brighter.

It's magnificent picture, thanks for posting.

 

[MP_]

It's magnificent picture, thanks for posting.

I made a life decision recently to stop procrastinating about doing things that give me joy. So I’ll probably stating staying up late or getting up early to take celestial object photos from now on. Glad I did this one as it’s a once in a lifetime comet. It’s also fading so it may not even last another orbit.

 

[MP_]

There is another comet discovered less than a month ago that could be naked eye visible by the end of this week.

Comets 2025: Next Comet Visible from Earth

Learn about the brightest comets observable from the Earth in 2025. Some of them might become visible through binoculars or even with the naked eye!

starwalk.space

Also the app associated with this site has great information on celestial objects and events.

 

[Rotayjay]

I think that's the exciting thing about comets: you never know how often a good one will swing by from the depths of space, never know how good it turns out to be, and how long its spectacle will last.

I wasn't into space in 1997 - did Hale-Bopp ever make a good appearance in the southern hemisphere, or was it really northern only? McNaught was great in 2007 but I still wasn't interested enough to take photos when I saw it that night at Grange Beach after sunset.

 

[CD Xbow]

I have been posting a lot about meteorite impacts. The S2 impact in South Africa was only recognised in 2014. It was huge and makes the dino killer look like a pebble. It occurred around 3.2 billion years ago and had a significant impact, pardon the pun, on Earth and perhaps the development of life. We have good evidence now there was already a variety of very simple life on Earth at that time. The SA scientists have found rock evidence the impacts churned up nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms. The giant fertiliser bomb is the catch phrase.
BBC have an article about it.

Giant rock boiled the ocean 3.2 billion years ago. It was a 'fertiliser bomb' for life

New research has uncovered what could very well be the key to our very existence.

www.9news.com.au

 

[dirty2]

I have been posting a lot about meteorite impacts. The S2 impact in South Africa was only recognised in 2014. It was huge and makes the dino killer look like a pebble. It occurred around 3.2 billion years ago and had a significant impact, pardon the pun, on Earth and perhaps the development of life. We have good evidence now there was already a variety of very simple life on Earth at that time. The SA scientists have found rock evidence the impacts churned up nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms. The giant fertiliser bomb is the catch phrase.
BBC have an article about it.

Giant rock boiled the ocean 3.2 billion years ago. It was a 'fertiliser bomb' for life

New research has uncovered what could very well be the key to our very existence.

www.9news.com.au

The article was a good read.

 

[CD Xbow]

The article was a good read.

Yes, it was. Episodic 'extraterrestrial intervention' has played a significant part in the development of life on Earth. No place for us if the dino's hadn't been wiped out.

 

[MP_]

I think that's the exciting thing about comets: you never know how often a good one will swing by from the depths of space, never know how good it turns out to be, and how long its spectacle will last.

I wasn't into space in 1997 - did Hale-Bopp ever make a good appearance in the southern hemisphere, or was it really northern only? McNaught was great in 2007 but I still wasn't interested enough to take photos when I saw it that night at Grange Beach after sunset.

I really want a telescope now so I can start perusing the sky of all these objects. The wife tells me I have to either sell my rock tumbler or 600mm zoom lens to fund a new hobby .

 

[CD Xbow]

I really want a telescope now so I can start perusing the sky of all these objects. The wife tells me I have to either sell my rock tumbler or 600mm zoom lens to fund a new hobby .

I have a Meade ETX 90 EC you can have. I bought it when Mars was very close to Earth in 2003. The kids and I really enjoyed looking at Mars but have never used it since. Happy to give it to you.

 

[CD Xbow]

Physicists have a new neat theory called cosmological coupling. It is suggested black holes convert normal matter into dark energy. The theory has produced an expansion rate for the Universe consistent with current measurements, but also may provide an explanation for that other pesky cosmological problem, the missing normal matter that should be in the Universe. That's what made the physicist invent pixie dust (dark matter), that stuff they have been searching for nearly 50 years and never found. Early days, but this seems to be a more elegant solution. There could be a lot of new physics to come out of this, too.

Black Holes Could Be The Mysterious Force Expanding The Universe

From the winding down of clocks to the death of stars, everything seems destined to eventually grind to a halt.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Frank Bunn]

This run was to test the Super Heavy rocket to a number of breaking points and it exceeded expectations.

 

[dirty2]

That's cool... I liked how it landed in the water.... Couple of flames at the end

 

[CD Xbow]

​

Mars was wet early on, there is a lot of evidence of this, as the picture above suggests. Scientists studying 'Black Beauty' a famous Martian meteorite made up of broken-up regolith, found evidence of hydrothermal processes suggesting they were exposed to hot water when they formed 4+ billion years ago. This article is by one of the scientists involved.

A 4.45 billion-year-old crystal from Mars reveals the planet had water from the beginning

If Mars was once habitable, it needed to have water. For the past 3 billion years, it’s been rather cold and dry. But what about the early days?

theconversation.com

A similar process has been described in material from Olympic Dam deposits in SA. Unfortunately at the end of the article he says this:

'What is clear is that the crust of Mars, like Earth, had water shortly after it formed – a necessary ingredient for habitability.'

The statement is true but it has led to many articles in the media to have misleading headlines suggesting Mars was habitable in the past, which it certainly was not, as there was no significant oxygen in the atmosphere. He probably would have been better to say "a necessary ingredient for life".

 

[CD Xbow]

Artemis 2 and 3 are to be delayed because of heat shield problems detected in the Orio capsule after it's return to Earth during the Artemis 1 mission. Artemis 2 is an earth orbital manned mission, 3 is an orbital mission to the moon and 4 is the return to the surface. How this all pans out with Musk in Trumps administration is uncertain.

| EarthSky

earthsky.org

 

[CD Xbow]

This post follows up the Artemis heat shield problems. NASA engineers believe they have the answer. The material is the same as Apollo. Why has it been failing........?

NASA’s crew capsule had heat shield issues during Artemis I − an aerospace expert on these critical spacecraft components

It’s a good idea to make sure your spacecraft can take the heat that comes with reentering Earth’s atmosphere before you put people in it.

theconversation.com